Ed. Note: NOAA's spokesperson has stated that it is not NOAA's decision to require or not require a degree. "The Office of Personnel Management sets the requirement for positions that require degrees. When we first advertised the position we mistakenly required a degree. Since OPM guidelines do not require a degree we had to re-open the position."
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that NOAA is requiring no college education for the next director of federal fisheries law enforcement because such a requirement might deny the agency a talented but uneducated leader, a spokesman said.
But a congressional critic of the agency was skeptical of such reasoning, and the lack of an degree requirement for a director who leads a national force of more than 200 agents working with a budget of more than $50 million.
The posting shows the job pays between $119,554 and $179,000, and requires intricate coordination with state and local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and foreign governments. The application deadline passed Thursday.
NOAA admitted Thursday it had made a mistake in the posting and reposting of a job description for the senior executive position with responsibility for enforcing the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Endangered Species Act, and ensuring compliance with mountainous regulations and overlapping jurisdictions domestically and internationally.
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